Existed
by ThatClutzsarahh
Summary: They all existed once, but not anymore. Post Season Finale
1. Chapter 1

**a short little response to the season finale. obviously spoilers for it, but you should know that by now. As for my opinion on the finale, I don't think i can form one because I'm not worthy of watching Fringe anymore, that is how epic the show has gotten. I thought the whole thing was done tastefully with beautiful acting (can i get an emmy for john noble, please?) It was a beautiful, heartbreaking, intense (and awkward, but only at the end) finale that I enjoyed alot. I'm watching again tonight. And for the record, I bawled for the last twenty minutes of the show. :)**

**I own nothing but the plot.**

**Rated K**

**another note, this is not angst, at least i don't think so. (but feell free to tell me otherwise :) )**

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><p>"They'll all be safe now, right?"<p>

He asks this question, standing outside on the law of liberty island, outside the statue itself.

"Of course."

"She'll be safe?"

"For now."

"Forever."

September turns his head to look at him, his hat covering most of his prominent forehead so that it sits near his brows. He watches Peter with highly open eyes, soulless eyes, trying to get into Peter's brain. In frustration he looks away, unable to read a mind that never existed in a time line.

Peter stands with them, surrounding the place that he was just in, barely able to understand that a few moments ago he was the world to one woman inside there and now, he was not even in the world, not even in a timeline. But it was a choice he made, a choice that he made inside a machine that shouldn't exist-therefore he does not exist.

"You never existed to her."

August says this from his right side, his head cocked, calculating, watching events unfold before his eyes that no one else can see. Peter watches the sky, the starless night and thinks about everything he did. He did it for them. For her.

"She existed to me."

He straightens a tie he wears, the lapels of his jacket folding over his crisp shirt. He looks just like them, sort of, but he's kept his hair, kept his brows and kept a ring from a future that won't happen anymore.

"We all wiped our minds. Eventually you will come to see keeping yours is a mistake."

The cadence to their voice is no longer eerie nor annoying but calming and soothing in the eerie place he is now.

"Will they be able to see me? Will she?"

"Perhaps in time. But they may long be gone before that."

Peter nods and stares down at his feet, clad in shiny leather shoes, watching the grass wet them. It is not hot or cold to him, a perfect temperature that surrounds him cosmically, floating around him as stardust, twinkling and bursting with memories that he can replay over and over again when he wishes. These are things that were and moments that weren't, all his choices and consequences, actions and reactions laid out in tiny blimps.

"Is this what you stare at? Moments?"

"Choices. Paths. But not our own."

Perhaps Peter is defective because all he sees are his own choices, bad ones, good ones, ones he never made. He sees three or four different futures from families to loneliness to jail. If they do not see their own options, why does he?

Because he is not them.

He does not need to observe the world, to watch choices, to guide (sometimes) others to the correct one or steer them into danger. He is different, for now, because his existence was just recently erased. These observers, once people, were erased long ago, unable to contact others, memories wiped, moments gone, programmed and reprogrammed to function as machines and not people. He sees now, since he can see everything, that there are more observers than the few he knew and that they, too, appear soulless, emotionless. But he will not be them. He is more than them.

"Will they ever remember me?"

"No."

"Will she ever remember me?"

"Perhaps."

Peter looks at August, at his statement that contradicts as it floats around his mind. The universe is full of contradictions and he is one, a big contradiction in the timeline that no ones understands is not linear but actually spherical, all around them at once. Peter can't see what August sees nor what September and August see together and it frustrates him that it is so, but knows that they cannot see his mind and see that he is defective, that he is functioning on a plane different, an axis that rotates around a woman that could perhaps remember him.

"She is special."

"I was special."

"You have fulfilled your purpose. She has yet to fulfill hers."

"She is safe."

"For now."

"Forever."

August watches him again, September joins him, two pairs of soulless eyes that just observe, observe him as the anomaly, the blip.

"She has forgotten you. She will never remember you."

"I will not forget her."

"Come then, it is time to go, we are not needed here anymore."

The observers turned, all of them, the field of them and Peter turns with them. He too holds a briefcase full of notes, of pictures of moments with a woman who exists now without him. And while she will never remember him, he will never forget her.

He cannot exist with her.

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><p>Can i get a review, opinion, thought, critique, etc? :) 3<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

**I decided that, perhaps, it was a good idea to make this a multi-chapter fic. Thank you everyone for your reviews, they mean alot to me :) As for this story, it will be exactly like canon, the best it can be. This of course is speculation because let's just be honest, we can't possibly come up with what is REALLY going to happen in september**

**I own nothing but the typos.**

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><p>She lives 16 blocks away from the launch deck to The Bridge, formally known as Liberty Island. It has been three months, two weeks, four days, 11 hours and 56 minutes since he blipped out of existence when he bridge together the worlds and he's at his usual spot since she moved, standing outside the high rise and waiting for her to enter. Today she has gone to the market after work. She's balancing a brown paper bag and fumbling in her pocket for the key to the door when the doorman opens it from the inside. With a bright smile she thanks him before stepping in. He slides in behind her.<p>

No one can see him still, and perhaps its a good thing because he's lingering to close to her as she opens her door. With her hip she swings it wide, allowing her and her phantom shade him to slide behind her before shutting it. He takes to his post in the corner of her living room, briefcase on the ground and settling into the seat.

It looks like rice pilaf for dinner and he desperately wants to join her. He misses her cooking. If she could remember him, she would miss his cooking too. But while he's allowed her company (without her knowledge) to keep him sane, she doesn't get the pleasure of remembering him. It's perfectly all right with him because for once she's been perpetually happy. Her smile lights his world and so if he never existed in hers and he's allowed to see her grin, then he'll deal with it that way.

She's cutting up small bits of onion when he comes to stand behind her. Her fingers are delicate, the knife balanced so beautifully between her palm and forefingers, slicing away into the onion bits. Knowing full well she would never feel it, he places his fingers over hers, his hand on her hand, guiding her hand, gently, carefully, beautifully. But she will not feel it and his hand slips from hers as she stops, her eyes gazing at a frame of a picture of her on the counter.

It had, of course, once included himself, his arms draped over her shoulders and fingers entwined in hers as they rest on the bench. They were both in white cotton shirts and while she's smiling directly at the camera, a big white smile when he was in there, he was smiling at her. He had whispered a funny joke in her ear and they photographer had caught their smiles, his wide grin at her shoulder and hers at the camera man. It was a sickly perfect photo with the two of them together. But now it seemed to be a radiant grin that belonged to her.

He caressed the frame of the photo, the wood passing between his fingers like air and he sighed stepping away. She smiled once again before resuming her cutting. He has already crossed the room and is staring in the mirror in her hall. While he can see himself, black suit white shirt, fedora and all, if she were to look up and see in the mirror, she would see right through him. Because she exists while he does not.

The phone breaks through the silence, a sharp and piercing ring and she leaves her post of cutting to answer it.

"Dunham," she says, the smile bouncing across her face. "Hey Rachel."

"No, no I'm not busy," she says, "I'm just cutting up dinner. No, there's no one coming over," she says slyly, "I'm serious Rachel. Thanks for the dating advice," she says with a laugh, "But no. My life's way to busy to even think about it."

Peter breathes a momentary breath of relief, knowing that she isn't entirely gone on without him. Sure he's seen her making friends, guy's watching her the wrong way, and while he wants nothing more than to hit their smug, dirty looks off their faces, he knows he won't be able to. He can swing all he wants but they won't be bruised, and he won't be satisfied.

"You can come on over anytime Rach," she continues, tucking the phone between her shoulder and head while she takes her post cutting up vegetables. "Next thursday? Sounds great, I'll get off early and we can go to the wharf for food. I know, sounds great. Of course Ella can come too. Hi baby girl, I miss you too. All right, well I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye."

Olivia clicked off the phone and stuck it up by her-their-photo before going back to humming a melody he knew it be one he played her a universe ago, a melody he composed for her own good, for who she is and what she stood for. She spun around and began to boil water, oblivious to his presence in her apartment, the silent intruder, a long forgotten lover. With a soft hum between her lips, she began her cooking, hopping from a foot to another foot, resting her weight, shifting, moving. It was just like her, never to be still. Peter steps closer to the photo, fingers across the wood grain of the frame and he sighs, tracing the contours of her face gently. He wanders from the kitchen to the hallway, personal and yet still impersonal. His leather shoes made no sound against the soft carpet as he made his way to the bathroom. Her tiny blue toothbrush sat in a cup next to the sink, his own red one absent. Everything about the place was so domestic, so perfectly home and yet so very wrong. Her towels were white, impersonal save for a large yellow fluffy towel, his favorite towel and he walks over to press his face against it.

He inhales nothing. Not even her scent.

There is a slight ping from inside the deep suit pockets and he pulls out the strange device they call a phone. October is calling, his mentor, and he presses it to his ear. He doesn't have to say hello, they know, always know when he answers.

"There is something happening."

"Where."

"There."

It's as cryptic as ever and the man hangs up before he can respond, causing he teeth to grind together. He will be back tonight to watch her sleep, her deep and restful sleep, a slumber he knows only once existed inside his embrace. He heads for the door, his briefcase appearing in his hand as he adjusts his hat. Olivia is still in the kitchen, humming away and he turns to her with a side smile.

"Bye Liv," he murmurs into the air. She doesn't react, like she never has, but instead spins to the sink to tap on the water. Washing her hands she looks up towards the mirror and freezes. Her whole spine froze up, a shiver visibly running down it as she looks at the mirror.

He is there, she sees right through him to only his reflection. She can't see him, but just the reflection of him as he stands there, shell shocked and frozen, watching her watching him. Her brow contracts as if she's searching for something, something in her mind and he hopes that maybe she remembers him. But the way she says his name makes his heart break. She is unsure, unsteadied and his name sounds foreign, wrong and yet so soothingly beautiful.

"Peter?"

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>oh, cliffhanger. :) reviews? opinions? Thoughts? theories? why only his reflection?<p><p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**so i just got 9 reviews! HOLY COW! thank you thank you thank you so so so so much! anyway, here is the next chapter, since i'm really into this! I hope you guys are just as into it as me ;)**

**i own only the typos.**

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><p>He meets October with March in the deepest desert of New Mexico.<p>

It's in the middle of the night, or so it seems, but the sky is alight with beautiful cosmic stars, bursting like flowers and releasing pollen in the shades of glorious pinks and purples and yellows and greens. Peter doesn't understand why they are standing there, eyes locked to the sky and unmoving, and he feels unnerved, ridiculously uncomfortable.

"What are we doing here?"

"We are watching."

"For what?" He rolled his eyes to watch them.

"Watching."

Peter grinds his teeth together. What is he watching for? He should not be here, he should be back, back to an apartment that was to be his, back to being _her _phantom lover, a man that will never be seen but will forever love her. Sighing, he turns his face to the sky, his green eyes searching, looking. Instead he finds that before his eyes, memories unfold, paths he's learned that are ones he never made. He doesn't understand why they appear to him, if he no longer appears to her, but the moments are enjoyable and he watches them patiently.

"I don't understand what I'm seeing," Peter says and both October and March turn to him.

"Do you not see her?"

"Who?"

"Your lover."

Peter stumbles back, his jacket opening just a bit and swaying in the wind. He looks over at them, their expressions calm and collected as if they just said the most casual sentence in the whole world. His brow contracts, furrowing under his hat and he watches them watch him.

"What do you mean?"

"You have been with her, watching. She has not left your mind yet."

"She will never."

"Because you are flawed."

"I was human. Real."

"We all were."

More confused than ever, Peter turns to face them, the memories that swirl in his mind and behind his eye fading. The questions replaced them, blossoming in the rolling hills behind his painted eyes.

"You are defect."

"I am not you."

"For now."

"Never," he answers sternly, "I am different."

"Yes. You are special."

Peter feels an immense surge of annoyance for the cryptic, contradicting, conspiring souls that call themselves the observers-or rather what he used to call them when he existed. He's not sure what they call themselves now, obviously they do not consider themselves observers. Perhaps they do. Dear _God_ he was starting to sound like them. He shook his head and stared at them.

"I'm leaving."

"Go ahead. You will be back, when we call."

"Maybe not."

"Perhaps."

Peter grinds his teeth together before heading to the edge of the desert, briefcase in hand. He leaves both March and October behind him, staring at the stars with their calculating soulless eyes. He wishes with all his being that he will not be them, that he will not become soulless and impersonal. But he can already feel it seeping in, his mind functioning different, calculating choice different, muscles stiffening, turning, changing into different. He only hopes it is not too late for him.

She is sound asleep when he enters the place again, darkened and cool but he knows the way to her bedroom. He knows she isn't asleep even though her breathing is steady. She still doesn't sleep and he knows the exact remedy for that, his warm arms around her, shoulders caving in against her skin, breath soothing against her neck, across her cheek. And even though it's been 3 months since he's held her and a universe since she's know him, he still finds himself unable to stop watching her.

He looms over the bed, a phantom lover, a shadow man in her room. He rests his hat on the night stand near her lamp and places the briefcase at his feet. The bed does not dip when he puts his weight on it and he rolls over to snuggle up behind her, his suit clad arms draping over her body, hands running over her arms to soothe her- soothe him. Three months this had been his nightly ritual, three months he spends watching her try to sleep, watching her turn uncomfortably in his ghostly grasp, unable to soothe her.

He was helpless.

He pressed a kiss to her neck, trying to soothe her as she lay awake. He can see her eyes, open and wide in the reflection of glass as he lay with her. The lights of The Bridge twinkle outside her window and he knows she's watching it. Part of him wants to pick her brain, but he's unsure how to do that just yet, and if he were, who would he be greeted with? He lays back, close to her body, cradling her in his grasp as he feels his face grow moist. It's not the first time he's cried with her in his grasp. It's painful and perfect and brilliant, so much so that he hurts all over. He presses his forehead against her back, between her shoulders and lets out just a slightly strangled sob. She's almost asleep in his false grasp and he won't sleep again.

"I miss you so much Liv," he whispers against her shoulders. It's not the first time he's whispered to her, into her skin and it's not the first time he's cried against her.

Sometimes he'll sit on the sink in the bathroom while she showers behind the curtain and he'll hold a conversation with himself, murmur moments he's seen into the air. Sometimes he'll tell her how she died in the future he saw, other moments include his tribe of Bishops and her smile. Then there are the moments where she is alone and he can't save her and how much he misses her.

Other times are like tonight, watching her cook or watching her watch T.V. He'll watch her drink after a long day, wishing that those boot clad feet were his to rub, that those golden silky strands were his brush, to braid, to soothe away with his fingers. He'll want to carry her to bed when she falls asleep on the couch or push her eyelids down when she looks like she about ready to drop over her files. What he used to do, he can't anymore. She hasn't noticed and she won't noticed. It's the order of the universe. He does not exist.

So thats why it surprises him when he hears her low hum in the back of her throat. She shifts in her halfway state to dream land, almost as if she were nuzzling up into his arms.

"I miss you too," she murmurs into the air so quietly he isn't sure she had said it. "I love you."

"I love you too Liv."

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><p>soooo, how was it? :) why can she only remember him briefly? does she remember him or is she sleep talking? reviews, theories, answers to those questions and criticism are all welcome! love you guys :)<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**so basically chapter two =10 FREAKIN REVIEWS! and chapter 3 =5 REVIEWS! (cut in half?) i know it's strange and I'm slightly worried that I may have done something wrong, but I have no fear that you loyal story lovers will read this! anyway i want to say THANK YOU SO FREAKIN MUCH. and now, onto the next chapter!**

**I own the typos.**

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><p>Walter and Walternate were at it again.<p>

Nose to nose and toes to toes Walternates hard features were like stone compared to the face of venerable Walter with half his mind. He was only there because after he had watched Olivia dress and eat breakfast-actually drink it, in the form of coffee-she had been called to The Bridge because they were at it _again_, arguing more defined than before, a bunch of jibberish she didn't understand without him there and he knew it.

Her faces scrunched expression was priceless.

Walter rambled on about quantum this and physical that, while Walternate countered his argument with string theories and D evolution and more nonsense that at some moments, if Walternate wouldn't take a breath, he wouldn't understand. So he stands there and wants to desperately translate for Olivia, but he can't. So instead he watches the unfolding argument with pity in his eyes, a soft twinkling.

And then the double walks in with all her swag and fiery charade. There's an unhealthy gleam to her sea green eyes and while he used to want to strangle her he feels oddly indifferent to her presence in the room. Walternate turns when he sees blonde Olivia stiffen and _almost_ shake. When Peter had existed, it was the double that had broken Olivia apart in shards of gorgeous bomb. Since he never was, what broke them apart this time? Or was it a naturally uncomfortable feeling, mutual on both ends?

"Agent Dunham," Walternate speaks, addressing the glamour of a woman, "What can I do for you?"

"Sir," she says, "There is a fringe event that requires your attention."

"Of course," he says, "I will be out in a moment."

She nods and leaves, the hop in her step so noticeable that he wants to rip his eyes out. Walternate turns back to Walter, face cold, harsh.

"This isn't over," he hisses before leaving. Walter stands defeated with his shoulders hunched. In a flash he straightened, pointing out his finger and shouting at him.

"You're right," he says angrily before he too, spins around to face blonde Olivia.

"It's all right Walter," Olivia tries and Walter shrugs.

"I am just like him," he says, "Or I was."

Olivia gives him that tight, sideways grin that she gives when she doesn't really know how to comfort or console something she doesn't understand. The smile doesn't touch her eyes and Peter moves for the first time from his corner, on the line of The Bridge, the space between the two universes, a space only he can stand on. He crosses to her side, away from his and circles the desk like a prowling cat, stalking, watching, waiting. He can't see inside her mind, but something's weighing on it, heavy.

"Walter," she says in her tone that means business. He picks up his head and turns to her, listening fully. "Walter I've been seeing things."

"Are you tripping, Agent Dunham?"

"And hearing things."

Walter doesn't dismiss her this time and he faces her fully. "Who did you see?"

"I don't know him," she says, "But he knows me, by name."

"You don't know him?"

"I don't think I do," she says again, "But he feels familiar, Walter."

"Perhaps it's deja-vu," Walter rambles and Peters mind picks up. Maybe Walter knows what's going on.

"No," Olivia dismisses, "It's not deja-vu. It's not like I've been there before, it's like he's missing."

"Like John?"

"Different," she answers, "I think his name is Peter."

Peter wants to shout at her that she is correct, that she remembers him and that he is there and so excited for her to come home to him. But he knows that no matter how loud he screams she won't hear him.

"I told Elizabeth that if we had a son, I would have named him Peter," Walter say idly, "But no matter. Agent Dunham, can you hear him now?"

"No."

"Can you see him?"

"No. But I feel him here."

"Do you want him here?"

"I want to know why," she says impatiently, "Why do I feel like there's someone lurking around me."

"We can run some tests," Walter suggests, "We can put your consciousness into a sleep state and perhaps you can connect with your entity."

"What if," she whispers, 'What if I don't want to?"

"No," Peter says, unable to stop himself, "No, no, no, no. Don't say that Olivia," he says, coming closer, standing between her and Walter, "Don't talk that like. It's me, you know it. You remember me, you're the only one. I'm n-"

"Well Agent Dunham," Walter says, talking over Peter's own monologue, "If that were the case, why did you bring it up?"

"-you want to remember me. I remember you, please." He takes her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks with a firm grasp but when she turns her head it slips through his ghastly fingers, whispering away like smoke as she turns around, beginning her pacing.

"What would it take, for me to connect?"

"Well, you could go in the tan-"

"No," both Olivia and Peter say at the same time.

"You could take a mild sedative, then a hallucengenic. We can access your mind that way and make open to your visitor."

"He's not a visitor Walter," Olivia says firmly, "He's a presence and he's always here."

"Do you want him gone?"

"I don't know!" She says angrily, "I can't tell if he's good or bad. You know me Walter, what if he's here to inhabit my mind next? I need to know-"

"I would never hurt you," Peter whispers, listening to her heartbreak. It's almost as if she's not the same woman, as if all the things that happened to her, the result of him, direct or not, happened differently. Who inhabited her mind? Who had retrieved her?

"Agent Dunham," Walter says, "I know it's hard to think about after your last trip, but if you'd like to meet your next inhabitant I suggest you should."

Olivia cocks her head to the side, as if the decision were weighing on her mind.

"And you can get rid of him?"

Peter felt himself pale.

"Always," answers Walter, "I can rid him now, if you'd like."

"Olivia, don't do this," Peter growls, "Don't go."

Peter figures it's time to leave, and October seems to sense that it's his time to go for his strange phone device rings. Peter darts from the area with his brief case in hand, other hand clamping down on his hat as he graces the balcony of The Bridge, the sea air whipping around him in a without a temperature or texture. October meets him there.

"She does not remember."

"She wants to rid me."

"You cannot let her do that."

"Why? She does not remember me," Peter growls

"She must."

Peter whirls, finally losing his temper and grabs the man by his lapels, and shoves him against the railing. He needs answers, he craves them and this man has some, not all, but some of them.

"Why?" he hisses, "You told me it's better this way, without me. Now you're telling me she must remember. What is going on here?"

"You want answers," says October, his eyes soulless and darkening at him, "And I can help you."

"How?"

"Come with me."

And Peter does, disappearing in the flash that was so uniquely theirs.

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><p>ooooooooo a mystical place all the observers home? where is it? What's happened to Olivia that she just wants to rid Peter's "presence? Did Walter have a duaghter if he did not have a son? tell me what you think!<p> 


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